Fifteen minutes after writing last night’s blog, in which I stated that I felt woozy, I promptly threw up. A lot. Thank God I made it to the commode. The body really is phenomenal. A true wonder. For a solid minute I wretched up my breakfast, my dinner, and a midnight snack. It was fascinating. I could feel my stomach acid burning my throat. Still, it’s funny the things you think about during the most disgusting and nauseating moments of your life. All the things that can run through your mind. Leaned over the toilet with both my knees on the cold tile, I thought, I sure am glad I didn’t get sick like this eight months ago when my leg was in a brace.

I mean, that would have been awkward, trying to get down on the floor and vomiting with a bum knee. Awkward and messy.

Now it’s almost twenty-four hours later, and I haven’t thrown up since. Phew. That being said, I’ve felt like crap all day. Not miserably awful, but nonetheless gross–tired, worn out, a bit lightheaded. My dad went to the grocery store this morning and got me bananas, rice, applesauce, and yogurt. In addition to one piece of toast, this is all I’ve eaten all day. This afternoon I watched a movie in which one of the characters folded a pizza in half and stuck it in his mouth, and my stomach rolled over. That’s one of the funny things about feeling sick. Nothing sounds good. It’s hard to imagine ever feeling well again.

Or is that just me?

One positive to not feeling well is that it’s given me a chance (an excuse?) to do nothing. Or rather, to lie in bed all day and watch television and movies. To take a nap. This afternoon I watched four episodes of the old television show Soap. Then I watched the classic movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It’s fabulous. If you’ve never seen it, I’m just going to say this one thing. Young Paul Newman. Anyway, then I watched a newer movie, Green Book, which is based on a true story, is set in the 1960s, and is about an uneducated white guy (thug) who’s hired to be the chauffeur for a African American concert pianist during his tour of the south. This was also fabulous. I cried.

As much as I’m enjoying watching movies–and oh, this evening I watched a bunch of standup comedy on the YouTubes–I’m really hoping my body will rally and feel better tomorrow. I’m thinking it was something I ate. Maybe a “little” twenty-four hour virus. Regardless, I have shit to do. Better said, I have shit I think I have to do. Because the truth is, there’s nothing we have to do. I could die tonight (don’t worry, Mom, I’m not planning on it), and somehow the world would move on. I think this is one of the benefits to being sick. It helps put things in perspective. Like, What’s really important, here? Why do I have to get sick before I’ll give myself permission to binge watch movies–something I enjoy?

Recently I heard that if you’re hung up on being productive (check), perfect (check), or pleasing to other people (formerly check), it’s because at some point in your life you got the message that in order to have VALUE you had to be these things. Said another way, the only way for you to SURVIVE was to–produce, not mess up, be nice, not show your emotions–fill in the blank. Seen from this perspective, psychological idiosyncrasies aren’t to be shamed, but rather are to be thanked–they helped us get by when were children. That being said, most of us take thoughts and patterns of behavior that worked when we were younger and continue to apply them throughout our entire lives. Ugh. I look at my nine-year-old nephew. He’s cute and all, but would I want HIS thinking, HIS logic calling the shots in my life?

Hell, no.

This is why I think it’s vitally important to update your mental and emotional software as you get older. Read self-help books. Go to therapy. Develop a spiritual practice. Do anything and everything you can to question both what you were taught and what you have come to believe. If something still works for you, fine, keep it. But if any thought, any behavior causes you pain, consider that there might be a better way. Sometimes I push myself so much to learn more, do more, it’s terrible. “I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof.” My body suffers. And so I continue to work through The Process and continue to walk The Path. I think, How can we be kinder to ourselves? How can we be gentler, sweetheart?

Let’s come down off this hot roof.